Communications between electronic devices such as for group conferencing and data sharing can be negatively impacted by the introduction of echo into the communications channels. Ubiquitous computing extends not only to desktop computer and portable computers, but now to handheld devices and computing audio/video nodes such as for video conferencing systems. Thus, session participants can connect to the session using different modalities such as audio, video, text messaging, wireless phones, landline phones, IP phones, etc.
One such system generally referred to as a distributed meeting system provides high quality multi-party conferencing and recording of meetings, as well as rich browsing of archived meetings enhanced through a number of analysis techniques. This system typically employs multiple endpoint devices such as a 360-degree camera centrally positioned in the meeting room to visually capture people and activities in the meeting room, for example, on a whiteboard. Additionally, the system can also employ a microphone array that operates to simultaneously input and output audio signals, intended or otherwise.
The communications framework now has to deal with echo generation from many different sources such as sources located in the same room and/or nearby locations such as cubicles. For example, in a conference room, when User J joins a conference session in a conference room using a communications client on a notebook computer and a centrally located audio/video device. User T is in the same conference room and joins the meeting to share slides. Near end and far end echo, as well as howling, may then be induced thereby impacting session participation.